But what has been the fact in regard to the operations of the American Anti-slavery Society? Simply, that they have gone to this work just as if it were their own proper business--as if there were no government in the land. They have never addressed the Government; they have never consulted it; they have never asked leave to be, to act, or to enter this field; but have erected a republic of their own, with a State machinery, and set themselves to change the government of the country, as if it devolved upon them by original and indefeasible right. In a word, they have taken in hand, by a virtual usurpation, the most delicate, and the most disturbing political question, which could possibly be agitated--a question, which, by the Constitutional frame of our Government, belongs properly and only to the States where slavery exists, and which, for that reason, the General Government itself can never meddle with, without the consent of those States. Clearly, the National Government is the only channel through which the subject can be lawfully approached from the free States; by the Federal compact the National Government is the public guardian of slavery; and consequently, when ever its abolition is attempted under the jurisdiction of the United States, independent of the action of the General Government, and without the consent of the slave States, it is a direct invasion of chartered rights, and a usurpation. We have now done with the proposition laid down for the argument of this chapter, and will only repeat it in form for the consideration of the reader: _That the American Anti-slavery Society is a grand and permanent political organization, self-erected, self-governed, independent, and irresponsible, having no connexion with the Government of the country, but yet usurping the appropriate business of that government._ CHAPTER II. THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY A SEDITIOUS ORGANIZATION.